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DISCOURSE 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OF 



DANIEL WEBSTEK. 



BY 



H. A. BOARDMAN, D.D. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

JOSEPH M. AV I L S N. 

228 CHESTNUT STREET. 

18 52. 



■J. 



^0 



(Tb 



C. S D E R M A N, PRINTER, 

19 !:^. ,T..imes Street. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Philadelphia, November 26, 1852. 

To THE Keverend Henry a. Boardman, D.D. 

Reverend and dear Sir: — 

We beg leave most respectfully to ask the favour of you to fur- 
nish for publication a copy of your discourse, delivered on Monday 
evening last, upon the life and character of Daniel Webster. We 
think it important that this graphic and eloquent tribute to the 
memory of the departed Statesman should be preserved in an en- 
during form. It may have a salutary influence upon many aspirants 
for political distinction, to know that devoted and patriotic services 
are appreciated, after the actors have passed away ; and it may 
comfort and strengthen the faith of the humble Christian, when he 
sees the efficacy of his holy religion so triumphantly illustrated in 
the trying hour of death. 

With sentiments of high respect and regard, 

We are your friends and fellow-citizens, 

R. C. Grier. Charles Gtilpin. 

Jno. K. Kane. John A. Brown. 

Geo. Sharswood. James Dundas. 

Oswald Thompson. Charles Macalester. 

J. K. Mitchell, M.D. Hugh L. Hodge, M.D. 

Evans Rogers. S. F. Smith. 

Arthur G. Coffin. Nathaniel Chauncey. 

John S. Riddle. Henry D. Gilpin. 

Isaac Hazlehurst. Frederick Brown. 



riiiLADELPHiA, November 29, 1852. 
Gentlemen : — 

I thank you sincerely for your very kind note, requesting for 

publication a copy of my discourse on the life and character of 

Daniel Webster, and have pleasure in placing the manuscript at 

your disposal. 

I remain, Gentlemen, 

With great respect, 

Your friend and servant, 

H. A. BOARDMAN. 
To the Hon. Robert C. Geier, 
Hon. Charles Gilpin, 
Hon. John K. Kane, 
Hon. George Siiarswood, 
Hon. Oswald Thompson, 
John A. Buown, Esq., 
And others. 



DISCOURSE. 



I CANNOT bring myself to believe that the theme 
which is now engrossing all minds, should be excluded 
from the pulpit. We are a smitten nation. The 
symbols of mourning meet the eye in our crowded 
cities, in our tranquil villages, in the remotest hamlets 
of the mountains. " A great man has fallen in Israel !" 
God has taken from us " the JionowahJe man, and the 
cowvsellor, and the eloquent orator!' If such a man is 
one of the choicest earthly gifts heaven can bestow 
upon a people, his removal may well be regarded as 
one of their greatest bereavements. We are admo- 
nished that the fall of a sparrow has its lesson of in- 
struction for us. How inexcusable would it be, should 
we treat an event like tlils with indifibrence. 

Yet while I recognise the duty upon which I am 
entering, I shrink from it. I have no hope of convey- 
ing to your minds my own sense of the magnitude of 
our loss. Still less can I expect to elude the strictures 
of those w^ho entertain what may, perhaps, be styled 
the popular view of the legitimate sphere of the pulpit. 
But I am pressed with the feeling that I mv.st, as a 
Pastor, in some way improve this dispensation :* that 



without attempting a formal eulogy on Mr. Webster, 
which would be in the highest degree presumptuous, 
I must here record my sense of the invaluable services 
lie has rendered to our common country and our 
common Christianity, and so endeavour to turn the 
emotions of sorrow which fill our hearts, to some use- 
ful account. If I can do nothing more, I must be al- 
lowed to cast a single flower, however transitory, upon 
his grave. 

Many eloquent tongues have already been employed 
in celebrating: Mr. Webster's character and achieve- 
ments. The most distinguished men of the leading 
political parties have vied with each other in doing 
homage to his intellectual greatness, his patriotism, 
and his private virtues. In respect to the first of these 
characteristics, he has long been without a rival, the 
acknowledged head and crown of this nation. A mind 
like his is a wonderful creation — adapted beyond the 
sublimest exertions of the Divine power and wisdom 
in the physical world, to inspire reverential and ador- 
ing views of the moral perfections of the Deity. Its 
essential elements were comprehension, strength, sa- 
gacity, and symmetry. Colossal in its proportions, it 
was nevertheless so well poised that it awakened ad- 
miration no less by the harmony of its movements 
than by the grandeur of its several parts. The origi- 
nal structure of his intellect conspired with the whole 
current of his training, to define the mission on which 
Providence had sent liiiu into the world. No other 
revelation was needed to show that the science of GO- 



VERNMENT was to be the proper study of his Kfe, and 
that he was ultimately, should he be spared, to take 
his place among that honourable assemblage — compri- 
sing, at the end of six thousand years, but a very small 
number of names — whom the world reveres as Philo- 
sophic Statesmen. If we except the great New Eng- 
land Metaphj^sician and Divine of the last century, 
Jonathan Edwards, our own country has produced but 
one mind comparable, in the qualities just noted, to 
his own ; and that, by an inscrutable Providence, was 
doomed to a violent extinction just when it had 
reached the full maturity of its powers. It is the re- 
cord of history, that Alexander Hamilton''' was " num- 
bered among statesmen at an age when in others the 
rudiments of character are scarcely visible ;" and that 
" America saw with astonishment a lad of seventeen 
in the rank of her advocates, at a time when her ad- 
vocates were patriots and sages." Mr. Webster him- 
self once beautifully said of him, " He smote the rock 
of the national resources, and abundant streams of re- 
venue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of 
the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The 
fabled birth of Minerva from the brain of Jove, was 
hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial 
system of the United States burst from the conceptions 
of Alexander Hamilton." If the genius of Webster 
was not signalized by so precocious a development, it 
was marked by no less vigour and versatility, and re- 

* We may fairly claim Hamilton as an American, although he 
was a native of the small island of Nevis, in the West Indies. 



8 

sembled it in the rare and happy union of a capacity for 
the largest generalization, with the utmost patience 
and penetration in the analysis of details. Like Ham- 
ilton, too, he Avas great in the Senate and at the Bar ; 
his equal as a statesman, certainly not his inferior as 
an advocate. It has fallen to the lot of Init a very few 
men in either hemisphere to achieve an equal dis- 
tinction in these two fields at the same time. Mr. 
Pitt and his illustrious antagonist, Fox, were pre-emi- 
nent as parliamentary debaters ; but politics left them 
neither time nor inclination for legal practice. Fox. 
however, is said to have excited the astonishment and 
admiration of the judges in arguing questions of law 
on the trial of Warren Hastings. Erskine. the most 
eloquent and successful barrister known to the British 
Bar, had but a second or third rate rank in the House 
of Commons. But of Webster it was well said by one 
of the leading members of our Bar, at the late town- 
meeting, " while the deep tones and the rich volumes 
of his voice were still almost echoing in the councils 
of the nation, they were again heard in forensic splen- 
dour in the highest judicial courts of the nation."* 

It is a remarkable and striking f\ict, that the supe- 
riority here claimed for him should have been conceded 
by all his contemporaries. Among the resolutions 
adopted hy the New York Bar, on the occasion of his 
death, was the following: 

"Resolved, That in tlir large capacities and varied 
powers of his inteUect. in the cuUure and discipline of 

* Josiah Kandall, Esq. 



9 

these powers in the highest sphere of human action 
and inihience, in the fortune of great opportunities and 
the success of great achievements, Daniel Webster 
stands first among the men of his day and generation, 
and his name and his fame will be a treasured posses- 
sion to his country for ever." 

This is not an empty posthumous compliment. It 
was the feeling, the universal feeling, during his life. 
In whatsoever part of the Republic, on whatever thea- 
tre, he was "primus inter pares," the acknowledged 
chief. On the Hoor of the Senate, before the tribunals 
of justice, at public festivals or political convocations, 

*' He above the rest, 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent, 
Stood like a tower." 

No one divided the primacy with him. No one 
contested it. No one seemed even to envy it. His 
very presence inspired respect. " It was enough (to 
borrow the words of an accomplished English noble- 
man'=' who visited our country two years ago) to look 
on his jutting dark brow and cavernous eyes, and 
massive forehead, to be assured that they were the 
abode of as much, if not more, intellectual power than 
any head you perhaps ever remarked." And when 
he spoke, the ample promise of his majestic appear- 
ance was redeemed. You found vourself listenino; to 
a consummate orator. Scorning the trickery of mere 

* The Earl of Carlisle. 



10 

declamation, lie gave himself to the question in hand 
with a dignity and earnestness of manner, an alliu- 
ence and precision of language, a compactness and 
cogency of reasoning, and a fertility of illustration, 
which never failed to rivet the attention, rarelv to 
carrv conviction to the heart. A master of the Eng'- 
lish tongue, the simplicity of his diction and the 
purity of his style, made him intelligible to persons of 
every class. Nor Avas it possible to listen to him 
without being instructed. Even in his familiar con- 
versation you were made to feel that his mind re- 
volved in a sphere above that occupied by ordinary 
men. And whatever the subject on which he spoke, 
you were certain to hear something worth carrj'ing 
away. 

It is only an expansion of the topic we have been 
dwelling upon, to observe that Mr. Webster could 
speak to the country with an author it// which be- 
longed to none of his eminent associates. This was 
not the result of any assumed suiDcriorit^'. It was 
not derived from olficial station, for it was equally 
marked during the intervals of his retirement, as 
when he was in the Senate or the Cabinet, as decisive 
at Marshfield as at Washington. It was the spontane- 
ous tribute of his fellow-citizens of all parties to his 
great abilities, his wisdom, and his known devotion 
to the Union. Whenever a cloud came down upon 
our foreign relations, or a threatening crisis approached 
in our domestic aflairs, the nation turned, as by a sort 
of common instinct, to Mr. Webster. There was no man 



11 

whose opinions at such junctures there was so great 
a desire to learn ; none Avhose utterances produced so 
decisive an effect upon the finance and commerce of 
the country. A few words from him, whether of 
distrust or of hopefulness, would tell upon every share 
of stock in Wall Street, upon every cargo of flour at 
Detroit, and every shijDload of cotton at New Orleans. 
The country knew that he was, beyond any other 
man, conversant with all its interests and relations ; 
that he never spoke what he did not fully believe ; 
and that his Avords were words of careful deliberation. 
They relied upon his truthfulness, and this, combined 
with his extraordinary abilities, was a tower of strength 
to him. There are able and truthful men who sur- 
\4ve him ; but it is no disparagement to them to say, 
that there is no man living who can stand up and 
speak to the American people as Daniel Webster 
could, or whose opinions will be sought for in great 
emergencies, as his were. 

There was a reason for the confidence which the 
country at large reposed in him, paramount even to 
the admiration in which all classes held his trans- 
cendent abilities. Mr. Webster belonged to the whole 
country. He was no local politician. He was no 
mere party man. New Hampshire might boast of the 
small, one-story farm-house in which he was born. 
Massachusetts might glory in having him as one of 
her adopted sons. But he was no man of Massachu- 
setts — no man of New Hampshire, — he was an Ame- 
rican. He had of course his geographical ties and 



12 

associations ; but Warwickshire might as well attempt 
to monopolise William Shakspeare, or Lincolnshire 
Sir Isaac Newton, as for any one of our commonwealths 
to challenge for itself the name and fame of Daniel 
Webster. His true position was that assigned him 
in a sentiment offered at a public dinner some eighteen 
months ago : " The Constitution, and its greatest Ex- 
pounder — the Union, and its ablest Defender." With 
a single exception, these are the most honourable 
titles known to American history ; and by so indisso- 
luble a tie has the gratitude of his countrymen bound 
them to his name, that they will go down to posterity 
with as definitive an application as that which attaches 
to the " Father of his Country." It is not intended 
by this language that Mr. Webster was not allied to a 
party, nor that he did not in his place advocate party 
measures. But he was not, and, by the necessity of 
his nature, he could not be a strict party man. Like 
Burke, whom he resembled in several particulars (his 
devotion to agriculture among the rest), he was a 
statesman as distinguished from a politician. And 
this, if traced to its results, may help to explain why, 
like Burke, also, he was never {if we are to Mieve 
everijtliinii we hear) a po})ular f\ivourite. 11" this was 
a fact, it was because he was too great to be popu- 
lar. He would not stoop to ]);nn])er tlie vanity and 
inthime the prejudices of the people. He despised 
the intrigue and cajolery by which small men and 
bad men so often rise to power. He was not a man 
to be bought and sold at the shambles. If the mea- 



13 

sures of an administration to which he was generally 
opposed met his approval, he had the rare indepen- 
dence and magnanimity to support them ; and some of 
his ablest speeches w^ere made on occasions of this 
kind. The triumph of party was not the end he 
lived for. Government was with him not a paltry 
eame of " Who wins and icho loses,'" but a divine in- 
stitution, ordained for the most beneficent objects, and 
essentially connected with the highest happiness of 
individuals, and the substantial improvement of states. 
In his view, the problems involved in administration 
are among the most profound, as its functions are 
among the most important, which can engage the 
attention of the human intellect. And it is easy to 
imairine the secret loathino; with which he must have 
seen these momentous interests made, as they con- 
stantly are, the sport of the vilest passions, and de- 
graded to be the very footballs of rival demagogues. 

The special subject to which he applied his powers, 
was the Constitution of his country. You shall have 
his own statement on this point : 

" Gentlemen, to be serious, my life has been a life 
of severe labour in my profession, and all the portion 
I could spare of that labour, from the support of my 
family and myself, has been devoted to the considera- 
tion of subjects connected with the general history of 
the country — the Constitution of the country — the 
confederation out of which the Constitution arose — 
all the history of all the Congresses which have 
assembled before and since the formation of that 



, 



u 

Constitution — and, in short, if I have learned any- 
thing, or know anything — and I agree it is very 
little — what I do know and what I do understand, so 
far as I understand anything, is the Constitution of 
the United States, the history of its formation, and 
the history of its administration under General Wash- 
ington, and from that time down to this/"=' 

It is not too much to say of Mr. Webster, that he 
surpassed all the men of his generation in his minute 
famiUarity with everything pertaining to the origin 
and working of our republican charters, and in the 
profound and varied knowledge, the masculine logic, 
and the lofty eloquence he brought to the exposition 
and establishment of them. " The key to his whole 
political course is the belief that when the Union is 
dissolved, the internal peace, the vigorous growth, 
and the prosperity of the States, and the welfare of 
their inhabitants, are blighted for ever; and that, 
while the Union endures, all else of trial and calamity 
which can befall a nation may be remedied or borne."f 
His feeling on this subject was so much like that of 
the immortal statesman with whom he has already 
been compared, that with two or three .slight altera- 
tions, a passage ap])lied by his eloquent eulogist to 
Hamilton, might be readily taken as designed for 
Webster. 

" He reserved himself for crises which he feared are 
approaching ; such crises, especially, as may allect the 

* Speech at Syracuse, New York, May '2C>th, 1851. 
t Mr. Everett. 



15 

integrity of the Union. How he was alarmed by 
everything which pointed at its dissolution ; how in- 
dignant were his feelings and language on that ungra- 
cious topic ; how stern and steady his hostility to 
every influence which only leaned toward the project, 
they will attest with whom he was in habits of com- 
munication. In every shape it encountered his repro- 
bation, as unworthy of a statesman, as fatal to Ame- 
rica, and desirable to the desperate alone. One of 
his primary objects was to consolidate the efibrts of 
good men in retarding a calamity which, after all, 
they may be unable to avert ; but which no partial 
nor temporary policy should induce them to accele- 
rate. To these sentiments must be traced his hatred 
to continental factions ; his anxiety for the federal 
constitution, although, in his judgment, too slight for 
the pressure which it has to sustain ; his horror of 
every attempt to sap its foundation or loosen its 
fabric ; his zeal to consecrate it in the affections of his 
fellow-citizens, that, if it fall at last, they may be 
pure from the guilt of its overthrow — an overthrow 
which may be accomplished in an hour, but of which 
the woes may be entailed upon ages to come."* 

How much his deep solicitude for the Union gave 
tone and character to Mr. Webster's life and labours, 
must be known wherever his name is mentioned. 
The impress of it is upon all his speeches — his funeral 
eulogies — his great legal arguments. It might even 

* Dr. ]>rason's Oration before the Cincinnati, in New York, July 
31st, 1804. 



16 

be detected in the rich tissue of his ordinary conver- 
sation. You could almost read it in his majestic 
brow, and his large lustrous, piercing eye.'-' Such 
had been the course of events that his very presence 
suggested the idea of the Union. When men saw 
him, their first thouaht was of the Constitution ; and 
there went forth from every breast a spontaneous 
tribute of veneration and gratitude toward the man 
who had been so instrumental, under Providence, in 
preserving intact the framework of our unrivalled 
government.f 

Nor has the extent of our obligations to him been 
overrated. It was his fortune to live at a most inte- 
resting and critical period of our history. He coni- 

* The author of the pamphlet entitled, "Personal Memorials of 
Daniel Webster," (Lippincott, Grambo & Co.,) mentions that he 
once questioned 3Ir. Webster as to his personal appearance when a 
school-master in ^Maine. His reply was, "Long, slender, pale, and 
all eyes ; indeed, I went by the name of ' All Eyes,' the country 
round." 

■\ In one of his addresses just quoted, he observed that it so 
happened that all his public services had been rendered to the 
General Government. But, correcting the statement, he mentioned 
a single exception. " I was," said he, "for ten days, a member of 
the Massachusetts Legislature, and I turned my thoughts to the 
search of some good object in which I could be useful in that posi- 
tion ; and after much reflection, I introduced a bill, which, with the 
general consent of both houses of tlu' Massachusetts Legislature, 
passed into a law, and is now a law of the State, which enacts that 
no man in the State shall catrh trout in any other manner tlian 
with the ordinary hook and line. With that exception, I never was 
connected for an hour with any State goveruracnt in my life." 



17 

menced his life almost simultaneously with our Con- 
stitution, having been a boy of only five years old 
when the Convention which formed it assembled in 
this city. The difficulties and dangers which gathered 
around the infancy of the government, and threatened 
its early subversion, had been happily surmounted 
before he reached his maturity ; but questions of the 
gravest import, and fraught with momentous conse- 
quences to the country, arose from time to time 
during the entire period of his public career. These 
were not simply matters of policy and expediency, 
like the tariff, the bank, the public lands, and other 
legislative measures, which he discussed with his 
usual ability ; but questions underlying all legislation, 
and affecting the fundamental law on which our in- 
stitutions rest. It was a new^ government ; new, not 
simply as a chronological fact, but in many of the 
essential principles which entered into its structure. 
History recorded no precedent for it. The world had 
seen nothing like it. It had required all the influence 
of Washington and his associates, and all the erudi- 
tion, acumen, and patriotism of the authors of the 
" Federalist," and other distinguished writers and 
orators, to win the consent of the different States to 
a federal Union. And wdien the Union was once 
formed, the delicate relations of the general and the 
state governments became, as they still are, a source 
of embarrassment and controversy. It was a question 
of this sort on which Mr. Webster made his maiden 

2 



18 



speech before the Supreme Court of the United States* 
— the celebrated Dartmouth College case. Of his 
argument on that occasion, it has been observed : 
" The logic and the law were rendered irresistible. 
But as he advanced, his heart warmed to the subject 
and the occasion. Thoughts and feelings that had 
grown old with his best afi'ections, rose unbidden to 
his lips. He remembered that the institution he was 
defending was one where his own youth had been 
nurtured ; and the moral tenderness and beauty this 
gave to the grandeur of his thoughts, the sort of reli- 
gious sensibility it imparted to his urgent appeals and 
demands for the stern fulfilment of what law and 
justice required, wrought up the whole audience to 
an extraordinarv state of excitement. Manv betraved 
strong agitation, many were dissolved in tears. Pro- 
minent among them was that eminent law3er and 
statesman, Robert Goodloe Harper, who came to him 
when he resumed his seat, evincing emotions of the 
highest gratification. When he ceased to speak, there 
was a perceptible interval before any one was willing 
to break the silence ; and when that vast crowd sepa- 
rated, not one person of the whole number doubted 
that the niau who had tliat day so moved, astonished, 
and controlled them, had ^i^dicated for himself a 
place at the side of the fu'st jurists of the country."! 

Such was the auspicious dawn of his In-ilHant ca- 
reer as an expounder of the Constitution. In subse- 

* A.D. ISIS, ill his thirty-seventh year. 
I Mr. Tiekuor, quoted by Everett. 



10 



qiient years still greater questions gave occasion to still 
greater efforts. Political heresies of the most startling 
character, such as no opposer of the federal compact 
had breathed in the earlier days of the Republic, were 
propagated under the sanction of distinguished names, 
and found able and eloquent champions within the 
walls of the Capitol. Principles were propounded re- 
specting the sovereignty of the states, which, if carried 
out, would have turned the bonds which hold the Union 
together into withs of straAV, and left this glorious 
fabric to fall to pieces, like the early republics, a prey 
to intestine feuds. The merciful Providence that had 
brought us through so many other perils, did not aban- 
don us in this hour of our extremity. A man was 
found equal to the crisis. He knew that it was a crisis. 
He formed a just estimate of the grandeur of the occa- 
sion. It was in his view an issue of no less solemnitv 
than whether this august Union was to be maintained 
and perpetuated, or broken up into a group of petty 
rival confederacies ; whether this beautiful land was 
still to be the abode of peace and plenty, intelligence 
and piety, with the freest, the happiest, and the most 
improving population on the globe, or to be given over 
to the manifold horrors of a violent dismemberment, 
and ultimately to the yet greater horrors of a fratrici- 
dal war ; whether the oppressed nations were still to 
draw encouragement and hope from the spectacle of a 
great people rising to an unexampled pitch of prosper- 
ity and renown, under the influence of free institu- 
tions, or to see the last hope of constitutional liberty 



20 



extinguislied, and the whole globe covered again with 
the black pall of despotism. Such were the issues in- 
volved in the sublime contest to Avhicli he was called. 
Rarelv in the course of human events has one man 
had so vast a burden laid upon him. Never did 
a man acquit himself in a great crisis more tri- 
umphantly. It is not my province to rehearse the 
details of that day's=== achievement. It is still fresh in 
your memories. The fame of it is a part, and no tri- 
vial part of our country's glory. While the Union 
lasts, that speech will continue to be cited as one of 
the noblest efforts — perhaps the very noblest — of mo- 
dern eloquence. And should this Republic hereafter 
}deld to the destiny of all human organizations and 
crumble into ruins, the oblivion that sweeps away our 
cities, our fortresses, and our charters, will leave 
Webster's reply to Hayne to be read and admired 
by distant generations as a memento of our greatness, 
no less indestructible than the monuments which 
Greece and Rome have respectively in the Philippics 
of Demosthenes and the orations of Cicero against 
Cat aline. 

I have dwelt on this s])eech because of the pre-emi- 
nence Avhich is commonlv assiiined to it amomi: Mr. 
Webster's oratorical efforts. And yet three years af- 
terwards he made a speech, of which one of our most 
eminent jurists,"]" whose name is never pronounced but 
with reverence, said, iu writing to him, '* I had just 

* January 26, 1830. 

■j" The late Chancellor Kent. 



21 

finislied the rapturous perusal of your speech on the 
Protest, as appearing in the InteUigencer of Saturday, 
when I had the pleasure of receiving it from you in a 
pamphlet form. I never had a greater treat than the 
reading of that speech, this morning. You never 
equalled this effort. It surpasses everything in logic 
— in simplicity, and beauty, and energy of diction — 
in clearness — in rebuke — in sarcasm — in patriotic and 
glowing feelings — in just and profound constitutional 
views — in critical severity and matchless strength. It 
is worth millions to our liberties." 

There is still another speech, too memorable to be 
passed over in this connexion, but too recent to re- 
quire more than a brief reference. We are now ver}- 
much in the condition of a ship, which, after encoun- 
tering a terrific and protracted storm, emerges at length 
into a tranquil sea, the heavens so serene, the air so 
bland, the sense of security so perfect, that all the 
peril and anxiety of the hurricane are as though they 
had never been. It is difficult to realize as we look 
abroad over our peaceful and smiling land, and see the 
various tribes which compose our population dwelling 
together in unity — no discontent, no alienation, no 
local jealousies, no political controversies of sufficient 
moment to occasion the slightest solicitude — that three 
years have not gone by since the whole country was 
convulsed for months together with angr}^ discussions 
which imperilled the very existence of the Union. It 
was no false alarm, no crv of women and children, 
which startled the nation. It seemed as though all 



22 

the foLintaius of sectional bigotry had been broken up ; 
as though the accumulated resentments of a half cen- 
tury had burst forth with unheard-of fury, and poured 
themselves upon the ship of state with a violence which 
threatened to " push from its moorings the sacred ark 
of the common safety, and to drive this gallant vessel, 
freiofhted with evervthino: dear to an American bo- 
som, upon the rocks, or lay it a sheer hulk upon the 
ocean."* It was an emergency which appealed Avitli 
irresistible pathos and energy to the patriotism of the 
country. And the appeal was not in vain. Our sanc- 
tuaries listened to unwonted and importunate prayer 
for the perpetuity of our beloved Union. States- 
men of all parties, suspending for the time their minor 
differences, hastened with a common loyalty to the 
succour of their common country. The people in their 
might and majesty assembled to deliberate on the 
crisis. And the mandate went up to the Capitol from 
millions of voices, like the sound of man}" waters, that 
THE Union must and should be preserved. But this 
sublime movement of the people was itself no less an 
eflect than a cause. Its mainspring Avas at Washing- 
ton. The Senate-chauil)er was aa'ain the battle-field 
on which this great contest was to be decided. And 
it was, for the second time, the liigh honour of ^Nlr. 
Webster to strike the decisive blow for the integrity 
of the Union. Other men there were, his ilhistrious 
peers, both in and out ol' Congress, who contributed in 
no mean degree to Ijring about the propitious result. 

* Williuin Pinkncy — mi tlio Missouri Quostion. 



23 



.1 



But such were the compHcations of parties, aud sucl 
his persoual antecedeuts and existing allinities, not to 
add, such his thorough comprehension of every one of 
the pregnant questions involved in the controversy, 
that to him, more perhaps than to any other indivi- 
dual, was assigned the responsibility of determining 
the final issue. He accepted the trust, and planted 
himself in the breach. " The imprisoned winds," said 
he in the solemn exordium of his memorable speech 
on that occasion,=-= '\are let loose. The East, the 
North, and the stormy South, combine to throw the 
whole ocean into commotion, to toss its billows to the 
skies and disclose its profoundest depths. I do not 
affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as holding, or 
as fit to hold, the helm in this combat with the politi- 
cal elements ; but I have a duty to perform, and I 
mean to perform it with fidelity, not without a sense 
of existing dangers, but not without hope." Address- 
ing himself to the difficult and perilous task in this 
spirit, he took up the debated topics, now twisted and 
matted into a Gordian knot, and resolved the tangled 
mass, not by cutting, but by untying it. One by one 
the vexed questions were drawn out, defined, and ad- 
justed to each other, until at length a platform was 
constructed, honourable to the North, honourable to 
the South, and true to the Constitution, where men of 
all types might sit down under the shadow of the 
Union and smoke the calumet. It would be too much 
to say that this speech restored the country to tran- 

* March 7, 1850. 



24 

(juillity. But the coiintn' instantly began to breathe 
more freely. There was a sort of feelino; that Daniel 
Webster was a safe guide ; and that if he had Ibund 
a path through this morass, it must be solid footing 
for those who chose to follow him. In the end, after 
months of agitation, which gave occasion to many of 
our ablest statesmen to signalize their devutiun to the 
Union, the great mass of the people did follow him. 
By the favour of a mercilul Providence, the Union 
was not only preserved, but cemented. 

It w^ere a curious speculation, what would have 
been the probable result had Mr. AYebster thrown 
himself, at this juncture, into the opposite scale ; had 
he, instead of advising mutual conciliation and con- 
cession, taken ground boldly against the Compromise, 
and employed his great powers in resisting that ad- 
justment. We have no warrant for maintaining that 
even this would lune defeated the urrani;enient in 
question ; but he knows little of the weight which 
Mr. Webster's name carried with it, who can doubt 
that it would have multiplied the obstructions to a 
settlement a hundred-fold. The people of this country, 
as a bod}^ are not politicians. And throughout all 
the States north of the Potomac, there were tens of 
thiHisands of quiet, industrious citizens, who, irrespec- 
tive of party ties, were disposed to ac([uiesce in Mr. 
Webster's opinions on all ([uestions properly national. 
Had his voice gone fortli at this crisis — '" These mea- 
sures are unjust lo the North; ihev are subversi\e of 
the Constitution : they are unrighteous and oppres- 



25 

sive," — the whole country, North and South, would 
have reeled with excitement, and all the previous 
agitation Avould have been but as the tremor which 
precedes the earthquake. We cannot doubt, it would 
be an ungrateful distrust of the benign Providence 
that has always protected us, to doubt, that even 
with this opposition, the nation as a body would 
ultimately have been conducted to some amicable 
solution of the difficulty. But had his influence been 
cast into the adverse scale, the quivering beam would 
have held the nation in long and intolerable suspense. 
From this trial the patriotism and fortitude of Mr. 
Webster saved us. It was a service calculated to put 
both these qualities to the test; but he was never 
found wantino- where the Union was concerned. In 
referring to this occasion more than a year afterwards, 
he said,''' " I thought it my duty to pursue this course, 
and I did not care what was to be tlic consequence. 
I felt it was my duty in a very alarming crisis, to 
come out ; to go for my country and my wdiole coun- 
try; and to exert any power I had, to keep that 
countrv to2:ether. I cared for nothing:, I was afraid 
of nothing, iDut I meant to do my dut}^ Dutj" per- 
formed makes a man happy ; duty neglected makes a 
man unhappy. I, therefore, in the face of all discou- 
ragements and all dangers, was ready to go forth and 
do what I thought my country — your countr}' — de- 
manded of me. And, gentlemen, allow me to say 
here to-day, that if the fiite of John Rogers had stared 

* At Buffalo. 



26 



me in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard 
the faggots ah'eady crackUng, by the blessing of Al- 
mighty- God, I would have gone on and discharged 
the duty which I thought my country called upon me 
to j^erform. I would have become a martyr to save 
that country." 

Such power over men as this great orator displayed 
on this and other occasions, is a godlike endowment ; 
and according to the principles by which it is con- 
trolled, will it spread light and joy over a land, or con- 
vert it into a scene of devastation. They are blessed 
indeed, who have grace given them to use such an 
endowment for the good of mankind ; and witli what 
terrific fury will retributive justice avenge itself upon 
the men who prostitute these high gifts to purposes 
of evil. 

The closing sentence of the letter of Chancellor 
Kent, quoted a few moments ago, contains a thought 
that should be noted. "Your speech is icortli m'dUons 
fo our liberties." The great battles of freedom are 
oftener fought in the Senate than in the field. Mr. 
Webster's life was consecrated to the cause of enlight- 
ened, constitutional lil)orty. lie might have adopted 
as his own the motto of the great Selden, ^r.^pi tscv-'o^ rr.v 
fXfuflefiav: (abovc all things, liberty.) Tii those elabo- 
rate arguments which enchained by turns an applaud- 
iug Senate and an admiring Court, he was strength- 
ening the foundations of our political edifice, and 
makinti- it a saier and more comfortable" homo for the 
millions who have sought a shelter in it. All his 



27 

sjmipathies were on the side of freedom and intelli- 
gent progress : for it was not the least of liis merits 
that he eluded the common fault of superior minds 
employed in the more recondite Ijranches of jurispru- 
dence, or subjected to the capricious criticisms of the 
popular voice. Such men are apt to become conser- 
vative to an excess. They value law more than 
justice. They distrust and dread the people. They 
are jealous of enlarging their political franchises. 
They look with complacency upon a strong govern- 
ment, and read nothing but danger in the effervescence 
and tumult of popular gatherings, where the masses 
meet to do their own business in their own way. No 
man had clearer or sounder conceptions than this 
eminent statesman, of the essential conditions of 
national freedom. He well knew that self-u-overn- 
ment was one of the highest and most dilHcult func- 
tions, whether for individuals or for nations. He 
never countenanced, therefore, that delusive and fatal 
radicalism, which would cast all the thrones of Chris- 
tendom, and those who sit upon them, into one great 
bonfire, and replace them with democratic charters. 
But while he recognised the need of some preparatory 
training as indispensable to the success of republican 
institutions, he was inexorably opposed to all the 
maxims and traditions of arbitrary rule, and ever 
ready to emplo}' his argumentative and luminous 
eloquence in cheering on nations which were strug- 
ghng for their independence. Of this we have two 
remarkable illustrations in his speeches on tlie Greek 



28 

Revolution and the Panama Mission. The generous 
sentiments so worthy of a statesman, and especially 
of an American statesman, Avhich pervade these, and 
indeed, all his speeches, characterize also his diplo- 
matic papers. They are impressed on every page of 
that remarkable document, in allusion to which one 
of our own distinguished citizens, who recently adorned 
the second office in the Republic, so felicitously said at 
the late town-meeting, " Tavo years have not elapsed . 
since Mr. Webster's pungent, powerful, and patriotic 
letter to Mr. Ilulsemann resounded like the roar of 
ordnance throughout Europe." The Cabinets of the 
other hemisphere were left in no uncertainty as to 
the ground on which our Secretary, and the govern- 
ment he represented, stood. And it was a solace to 
the continental nations to hear their oppressors re- 
buked by one, who, spurning the courtly dialect in 
which ministers and ambassadors are accustomed to 
disguise their real sentiments, dared to tell them in 
phiin, unvarnished Saxon words, which startled the 
wliole realm of diplomac}", that America would not 
permit any ibreign interference in her allairs ; that 
while they abstained from any intervention in tlie 
conlhcts of Europe, " the government and people of 
the United States could not remain indiflerent specta- 
tors when they beheld the people of foreign countries 
sponlaneDUsly moving towards the adoption ol insti- 
tutions like their own:" and that "nothing should 
deter tlicm IVoni exercising, at their own disi-retion, 
the rights belonging to them as an independent nation, 



29 

and of forming and exj)ressing their own opinions 
freely, and at all times, upon the great political events 
which may transpire among the civilized nations of 
the earth." 

Happily for Mr. Webster's fame and for his country, 
a new edition of his Avorks, edited by a distinguished 
personal friend (now his successor in the Cabinet), 
w^as published under his own eye, but a few months 
before his death. With the exception of his diplo- 
matic papers, the matter contained in these six vo- 
lumes, has all been spoken, and yet it savours as little 
of the character of mere speech-making, as any col- 
lection of orations or addresses in the language. It is 
the most valuable contribution which has been made 
to our political literature since the era of the Fede- 
ralist; and no professional library will hereafter be 
deemed complete without it. It was the singular 
merit of Mr. Webster, that he ^vas able to embellish 
the most profound disquisitions in political science 
with elegant and various learning, and to enshrine 
them in a brilliant and majestic eloquence. The ora- 
tor has passed away, but the patriot — the statesman — 
the sage — is immortal. Open his works at random, 
and you will instantly feel yourself to be in commu- 
nion with a master-mind. Nearly all the important 
events in our history — the origin and essential attri- 
butes of our federal and state governments, the deli- 
cate questions growing out of the expansion of our ter- 
ritory and the accession of new states, the proper 
limitations of the powers vested in the three depart- 



30 



ments of the government, the conduct of our foreign 
relations, the services of the founders of the Republic, 
education, the mechanic arts, agriculture, Christianity 
as the indis2:)en sable basis of free institutions — these 
are among the subjects he has discussed, and discussed 
in such a way that he appears equally at home with 
them all. Every theme to which he applies his impe- 
rial intellect, becomes transparent. Touched by his 
wand, the most chaotic mass of materials is reduced 
to intelligible forms. Complex details are classified. 
Principles take the place of sophisms. Declamation 
gives way to argument. Precedents are sifted to their 
last analysis. Consequences are portrayed with pro- 
phetic sagacity. Objections are refuted. One strong- 
hold of error after another is demolished. And vou 
follow on wherever the great orator leads the way, not 
because he has so fascinated you with the sorcery of 
his eloquence, that you are no longer a responsible 
agent, but because your reason is satisfied, and you 
have the witness within yourself that it is truth, not 
victory, at which he is aiming. Fascinated, indeed, 
you ma}' be. Who could be otherwise in perusing 
those admirable performances in which there is so much 
to gratify the taste, to enkindle pure and genei'ous 
emotions, to expand the mental \ision, and inspire the 
soul witli a prolbunder consciousness of its intrinsic 
dignity and its large capacities. And ^et, in all and 
above all, it is your reason which is addressed and con- 
vinced. Mr. Webster never fell into the error of de- 
grading his audience beneath the preiper level of hu- 



31 

inanity, and treating them as though they were crea- 
tures of mere sensibihty or mere fancy, who cared only 
to be excited or amused. Whether it is before a 
crowded Senate or a Mechanics' Institute, before the 
first legal tribunal of the country, or a heterogeneous 
mass-meeting, assembled from the palaces and the 
workshops of a large city, he never forgets that he is 
a man himself and is speaking to men. He reverences, 
as every man who presumes to address his fellow-men 
in public or through the press, ought to reverence, the 
human understanding. He takes it for granted that 
you want to be reasoned with; that nothing will 
satisfy you but truth and argument ; and that to at- 
tempt to put you oft', when you are eager to have some 
great problem of national pohcy or personal duty re- 
solved, with a bouquet of tropes or a quiver of invec- 
tives, would be like mocking an exhausted and gasping 
caravan in the desert, by rehearsing to them the tales 
in the Arabian Nights Entertainments. A few intro- 
ductory words of courtesy there may be, and then for 
the ar2;ument. And with such fairness and logical 
fidelity does he pursue the argument — clothing it with 
a diction so plain as to be intelligible to the humblest 
capacity, and so beautiful as to satisfy the most criti- 
cal taste — that if you go along with him at all, as you 
will be pretty likely to do, it will be because you feel 
at every step that you have firm ground under your 
feet, and know what you are about just as well as you 
do when treading the familiar rounds of your daily 
avocation. 



32 

This, in fact, is one of the characteristics of Mr. 
\yeb:^ter's speeches which warrant us in predicting 
that they will be as imperishable as anything in our 
literature. They are full of important truth, expressed 
in a manner which everybody can understand. We 
may say of him what a profound critic has said of Mr. 
Fox : " For ourselves, we think Ave never heard any 
man who dismissed us from the argument on a debated 
topic, with such a feeling of satisfied and final convic- 
tion, or such a competence to tell wliy we were con- 
vinced. There was, in the view in which subjects 
were placed by him, something like the daylight, that 
simple clearness which makes things conspicuous and 
does not make them glare, which adds no colour or 
form, but purel}' makes A^isible in perfection the real 
colour and form of all things round ; a kind of light, 
less amusinor than that of magnificent lustres, or a 
thousand coloured lamps, and less fiiscinating and ro- 
mantic than that of the moon ; but which is immea- 
surably preferred when we are bent on sober business, 
and not at leisure, or not in the disposition to wander 
delimited amono; beautiful shadows and delusions. It 
is needless to say that he possessed, in a high degree, 
wit and fancy ; but superlative intellect was the grand 
distinction of his elocpience ; the pure force of sense, 
of plain, downright sense, was so great that it would 
have given a character of sublimity to his eloquence, 
even if it had never once been aided by a hai)py image 
or a brilliant explosion. The grandeur of plain sense, 



33 

would not have been deemed an absurd phrase, by any 
man who had heard one of his best speeches." 

When to these considerations it is added, that the 
great questions discussed by Mr. Webster, can never 
cease to have their importance while our institutions 
last, we may assert with confidence, that his writings 
will become an indispensable text-book in the training 
of our future civilians. " I shall take care," said Lord 
Erskine, "to put the works of Mr. Burke into the 
hands of those whose principles are left to my forma- 
tion." With the same feeling, many an American 
citizen will place Mr. Webster's works in the hands of 
his sons. What better service, indeed, so far as their 
secular education is concerned, could we render them ? 
Where could they find a richer repository of sound 
political maxims, of lucid and comprehensive views 
concerning our national rights and duties, and of mas- 
terly disquisitions in constitutional jurisprudence? 
What writings would do more to make them thinkers 
and reasoners ; to form them to a large and just esti- 
mate of their social and civil responsibilities ; to raise 
them above the littlenesses of sectional prejudice, and 
put the stamp of a broad nationality upon their pa- 
triotism ; to show them that whatever use political 
parties may choose to make of their honours, and to 
whomsoever they may see fit to vote a triumph, a 
truly great mind, animated by virtuous sentiments 
and embracing the whole country within the wide 
sweep of its afiections, can achieve for itself a reputa- 
tion which no party-idolatry could confer, and no party- 



34 

malignity annul ; to stimulate them to seek, not the 
" empty blast of popular favour or the applause of a 
giddy multitude," but that " true glory," which, ac- 
cording to the prince of Roman orators, consists " in a 
wide and illustrious fame of many and irreat benefits 
conferred upon our friends, our country, or the whole 
race of mankind;"'-' and to impress it deeply upon 
their minds, that " if we and our posterity shall be 
true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live 
always in the fear of God, and shall respect his com- 
mandments, if we and they shall maintain just moral 
sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty 
as shall control the heart and life, we may have the 
highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country ; 
.... but if we and our posterity reject religious 
instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal 
justice, trifle with the injunctions of muralit}-, and 
recklessly destroy the political constitution which 
holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a 
catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall Ijury all 
our glory in profound obscurity."f These are among 
the lessons which our youns; men ma^• derive from the 
careful study of the works of Mr. Webster; and no 
wise father would willingly deprive his sons of the 
benefit of them. 

The inii)ortance of the subject may justify us in 
dwelHng a little longer on one of the points just indi- 
cated — the value to be attached to the life and writings 

* Oration for Marccllus. 

f Mr. Webster's Address before the New York Historical Socictj. 



35 



of this great publicist, as an auxiliarv in the training 
of our future statesmen. There are able men amongst 
us whose faith in the permanency of the Union appears 
to be nearly as firm as their confidence in the stability 
of the solar system. We may certainly congratulate 
ourselves that, through the liivour of Divine Provi- 
dence, our complex and beautiful scheme of government 
has maintained its integrity against all the assaults 
hitherto made upon it. But we have had warnings 
enough to admonish us against a blind self-confidence. 
Our o^vn experience forbids us to look for any exemp- 
tion from those intestine broils and commotions with 
which all other nations have been agitated. In a 
country of such vast extent, increasing in population 
and resources with a rapidity which makes a new atlas 
necessary every five years, with the utmost diversity 
of climate and productions, conflicting vsectional inte- 
rests, commercial and diplomatic relations spread all 
over the globe, thirty-one jealous and powerful state 
governments closely interlocked with a grand central 
administration, and sensitive to the slightest apparent 
invasion of their sovereignty, and twenty-five millions 
of people animated by an energetic, if it must not be 
said, an aggressive, Caucasian spirit, — in such a coun- 
try, occasions for discord and alienation can never be 
wanting, if there are individuals at hand whose inte- 
rest it is to find or create them. To provide for these 
emergencies, and as far as possible prevent or mitigate 
them, we must look well to the education, mental 
and moral, of our voutli. The church and the school- 



36 

house — the Bible enthroned in both — must be, under 
God, our first reliance. Next to this, we need states- 
men like him we have lost, and like some who sur- 
vive him. The ambition of ordinary minds cannot 
soar to this elevation. Nor can the most Generous 
intellects attain it without encounterimr hostile influ- 
ences, which are generated by the natural working of 
our institutions. Where office depends on the popular 
voice, the representative will find himself under a pow- 
erful temptation to merge all other political obligations 
in his supposed duty to his immediate constituency. 
The claims of his district will take precedence over those 
of his state ; and lo^'alty to his state will be stronger 
than his loyalty to the general government. Nor is this 
the only adverse agency to be met. A despotism 
may flourish without parties ; for the dead are always 
still ; but no free government has ever got on without 
them. In itself this is an advantage ; but the prac- 
tical tendency of it is to dwarf men into partisans. 
They are apt to sink both their individuality and 
their patriotism in servility to a party, and to employ 
those powers which should have been dedicated to 
their country, in the miserable contests of factions 
and sections. 

Here, precisely, in the ability of a man to rise 
above these local and party ailinities — to frame his 
views of truth and duty on a large and candid survey 
of things, and then to follow out liis convictions irre- 
spective of personal consequences — lies one of the 
essential i)ibi</tiia of the genuine patriot and states- 



37 

man, which distinguish him from the mere pretender. 
" A public man has no occasion to be embarrassed, if 
he is honest. Himself and his feelings should be to 
him as nobody and as nothing ; the interest of his 
country must be to him as everytliing ; he must sink 
what is personal to himself, making exertions for his 
country ; and it is his ability and readiness to do this 
which are to mark him as a great or a little man in 
all time to come."=^ This test, it must be admitted, is 
a very severe one. The moral courage and self-immo- 
lation it demands are alien from all the natural in- 
stincts of the human breast ; and if political honours 
and emoluments alone are regarded, this exalted kind 
of patriotism will find but t€0 little to nourish it in 
the annals of our race. It is for this very reason we 
should seize upon every means which is placed within 
our reach, to foster and diffuse it. And in this view, 
wdiat a legacy has the Republic received in the ex- 
ample and the w^ritings of Daniel Webster. Without 
challenging for this eminent man a moral perfection 
which his warmest friends have never claimed for 
him, it may be questioned whether the country will 
not yet reap from his services even greater advantages 
than those he conferred upon her while living. There 
is his public career — a study for the youth of America 
in all coming time. The career of a patriot-states- 
man, impressed throughout with characters of light 
and truth ; not like a huge meteor flashing fantastic 
fires, and startling the nations with its eccentric 

* Mr. Webster's speech at Faneuil Hall, September 30tb, lS-i2. 



38 

motions, but like a mountain stream, swelling hy 
degrees into a broad, majestic river, spreading fertility 
along its banks, lending beauty to the landscape, 
ministering health and comfort and prosperity to 
numerous populations, and bearing on its tranquil 
bosom the products of man}^ climes and countries. 
Is not such a career a substantial addition to the 
moral wealth of the nation ? Is it not a source of 
strength to every father who would imbue his sons 
with an intelligent and comprehensive love of country ; 
to every patriot who would extinguish, as often as 
they reappear, the liames of sectional jealousy ; to 
every constituency^ that may be exposed to the arts 
of aspiring demagogues ; to the teachers of religion 
who value our institutions as well for their connexion 
with a pure Christianity, as for their secular benefits ; 
and to the throng of young men always ready to 
launch away into the rough sea of politics, who would 
fain adopt, before starting, some wise and just prin- 
ciples w^hicli might conduct them to an honourable, if 
not a speedy, ftime ? One thing, at least, must be 
conceded. Mr. Weljster has made it more diilicult 
than it cser was before, to l)reak the Union to pieces. 
And that, not simply by his masterly exposition of 
the Constitution, l)iit l)y the whole inlluence which 
attached to his name while living, and which now 
attaches to his memory. It niu.^t tell with power 
upon the country lor generations to come, that he, by 
common consent, thc^ first American jurist, orator, 
and statesman of liis day. was one who, throughout 



39 

liis long and brilliant career, looked steadfiistly to the 
prosperity of the ichole country ; that he endeavoured 
to allay all sectional bickerings, and to suppress the 
misrepresentations and calumnies which engender 
them; that by his speeches and writings he sought 
to make the difterent portions of the confederacy 
better acquainted with each other, and thus to abate 
their mutual antipathies ; that he scorned the selfish 
provincial ambition which would use the passions and 
prejudices of well-meaning but misguided people, as a 
ladder to mount to place and power ; that neither 
wholesale slander from a venal press, nor the threat- 
ened displeasure of his own commonwealth, could 
deter him from any step which he believed to be 
essential to the welfare of the Union ; that no earthh' 
consideration could tempt him to swerve from his 
devotion to the Constitution, "the only bulwark of 
our liberties and of our national character ;" that at a 
great crisis of our affairs, when the surges of Northern 
fanaticism and of Southern disunionism broke over 
him, as he stood up in the Senate-chamber, with a 
simultaneous and common fury, the only effect upon 
him was to make him grasp the South and the North 
with a firmer hand, while he poured into their ears 
his affectionate and eloquent remonstrance, " Let 
there be no strife between you, for ye are brethren ;'" 
and that when his patriotic and beneficent career was 
terminated, men of all parties commingled their tears 
around his bier, and the entire nation mourned him 
as a public benefactor, the motto of whose life had 



40 

been that sublime sentiment, now tloubl}^ " dear to 
every true American heart — Liberty and Union, now 

AND FOR EVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE !" 

Before passing to the only remaining topic I pro- 
pose to notice, a few words may be allowed respecting 
the private character of the deceased senator. It has 
been correctly observed, that " distinguished statesmen 
generally become what may be called technical cha- 
racters : the Avliole human being becomes shaped into 
an official thing, and Nature's own man, with free 
faculties, and warm sentiments, and unconstrained 
manners, has disappeared." It was not so with Mr. 
Webster. Nature had entrenched herself too strongly 
in that colossal frame, to be driven out, and he re- 
mained " her own man" to the end. Persons who 
only saw him in a transient way might suppose he 
was simply a man of extraordinary intellect. Those 
who heard him, even in his more elaborate efforts^ 
could not fail to see that he was also a man of acne- 
rous sensibilities. But whoever was so fortunate as 
to meet liim in social life, would learn that so far 
from being all liead, he had a heart which was 
worthy to be the consort of tluit massive intellect. 
Notliin"" could obliterate — nothinii' even blunt his ear- 
nest sympathy with nature and with man. Neither 
his professional toils nor allairs of state, neither the 
ap])lause nor the ingratitude of the public, could dis- 
turb the perennial freshness of his leelings. lie loved 
the countr}'. lie delighted in the free intercourse of 
social life. His domestic aifections were strouii" and 



41 

tender. He entered with a genial relish into the 
vivacit}' and humour of the passing hour. His gene- 
rosity was proverbial. He was a steadfast friend — 
always frank, straight-forward, reliable — 

" A minister, but still a man."* 



It was a noble eulogium pronounced upon Mr. 
Clay, the second of our great triumvirate who was 
gathered to his fathers, when a representative from 
his own State said, over his remains, " If I were to 
write his epitaph, I would inscribe, as the highest 
eulogy, on the stone which shall mark his resting- 
place, ' Here lies a man who was in the public service 
for fifty years, and never attempted to deceive his 
countrymen !' " The inscription might with equal 
fidelity be inscribed upon the tombs of his great com- 
peers. Of the third of this illustrious trio, Mr. Web- 
ster himself said, before the Senate, on the occasion 
of his funeral — 

" He had the basis — the indispensable basis — of all 
high character, and that was unspotted integrity — 
unimpeached honour and character. If he had aspi- 
rations, they were high, and honourable, and noble. 
There was nothing grovelling, or low, or meanly 
selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr. 

* Of his magnanimity we have this pleasing example. 3Ir. Eve- 
rett relates, that in preparing the new edition of 3Ir. Webster's 
works for the press, he was instructed by him to obliterate from 
his speeches, if practicable, "every trace of personality." 



42 



Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, perfectly patriotic 
and honest, as I am sure he was, in the principles he 
espoused, and in the measures he defended, aside 
from that large regard for that species of distinction 
that conducted him to eminent stations for the benefit 
of the Eepuljlic, I do not believe he had a selfish 
motive or a selfish feeling. 

" We shall hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a 
grateful recollection that we have lived in his age, 
that we have been his cotemporaries, that we have 
seen him, and heard him, and known him. We shall 
delight to speak of him to those who are rising up 
to fill our places. And when the time shall come 
when we ourselves shall go, one after another, in 
succession to our graves, we shall carry with us a 
deep sense of his genius and character, his honour 
and integrity, his amiable deportment in private life, 
and the purity of his exalted patriotism.'' 

Mr. Webster himself mi2:ht have sat for this fine 
portrait. It is his own character by a master-hand. 
If the fidelity of the sketch be doubted, there are 
competent witnesses to confirm it. " Mr. President," 
said a leading member-' of the New York Bar the 
other day, a gentleman and a Christian ; " I have 
long been acquainted witli Mr. Webster, and from all 
that I know, and from all that 1 have seen ami heard, 
I bear testimonv here todav, that as a pul)lic man, 
he was a man of the liighest integrity. It always 
seemed to me as il' he acted under the immediate 

* Iliram Kctchuui, Esq. 



43 

conviction, that whatever he did was not only to be 
known to his own generation, but to posterity-. He 
regarded political power in his own hands as a trust, 
and though always willing and desirous to gratify his 
friends, if he could, he never felt himself at liberty, 
for an instant, for au}^ private means, to violate his 
great trust. I have known Mr. Webster in private 
circles, and in domestic life, and I bear testimony 
here to-day, that though I have received multitudes 
of letters from him which I now have, and many that 
have been destroyed by his orders, written in the 
most confidential and friendly manner — though I 
have had the pleasure of meeting him on many occa- 
sions, and at the festive board often where our ses- 
sions have been long — I bear testimony here to-day, 
that never in my life did I hear an improper thought 
or profane expression come from the lips of Daniel 
Webster ; and I bear further testimony, that never, 
in writing or in my hearing, did he ever assail private 
character. No man was ever slandered — no man was 
ever spoken ill of by Daniel Webster. And I further 
bear testimony, that never in my life have I known 
a man whose conversation was uniformly so unexcep- 
tionaljle in its tone, and uniformly so edifying in its 
character. I may say further, that no man ever 
possessed greater tenderness of feeling. He never 
yet had an enemy — and we all can bear witness that 
he had enemies of the most malignant character 
— but he never yet had an enemy that if he came to 
him he would not have shared with him his last 



44 

dollar to relieve liim, and mingle his sympathies with 
his. Mr. President, to say that these virtues were 
not marked with ftiilings — to say that Daniel Webster 
was without them, w^ould be to state that which was 
untrue ; but they have been before the public again 
and again, and no friend of his could regret the fact, 
if they had not been exaggerated." 

Another distinguished lawyer"^ of that city said : '• I 
knew Mr. Webster well. I had the honour of his 
acquaintance, and hope it is not too much to say, of 
his friendship, for more than a quarter of a century, 
and from his lips I never have heard an irreverent, 
a profane, or an unseemly expression, while his play- 
ful wit, his deep philosophy, his varied acquirements, 
and unrivalled powers of conversation, are among the 
richest treasures of my recollection." 

These testimonies, comprising, as they do, a minute 
scrutiny into the social habits of Mr. Webster for a 
long term of years, such as few men of any profession 
could bear, will do much to vindicate his reputation 
from the aspersions cast upon it by a malign party 
spirit. It is, however, the letters of great men which 
best reflect their personal traits; and we must wait 
for liis i)rivate correspondence before we can properly 
a})i)reciate those generous qualities which have been 
attributed to him. .1 udging from the specimens which 
have ])een piil)lished, his letters, when collected, will 
not only form one ol' the most attractive volumes in 
the language, but will amply authenticate the warm- 

* J. Prcscott Jlall, Esq. 



45 

est encomiums his friends have i^ronounced upon his 
private virtues. Notice, for example, the strain of 
his reply to the letter he received two years ago from 
a large number of his old friends and neighl)ours in 
New Hampshire, in which he says, " I could pour out 
my heart in tenderness of feeling for the affectionate 
letter which comes from you. It is like the love of a 
family circle ; its influences fall upon my heart as 
the dew of heaven." So, again, the letter on his 
early life, in which he describes the paternal farm, 
and narrates the circumstances which induced his 
father to send him to college, " in order," as one of 
his brothers used to say, " to make him equal to the 
rest of the children." In this letter he makes a touch- 
ing allusion to the dead of the household. 

"Looking out at the east windows, [the letter is 
dated at Franklin, May 3d, 18-46,] at this moment 
(2 p. M.) with a beautiful sun just breaking out, my 
eye sweeps a rich and level field of one hundred acres. 
At the end of it, a third of a mile off, I see plain mar- 
ble grave-stones, designating the places where repose 
my father, my mother, my brother Joseph, and my 
sisters, Mehitable, Abigail, and Sarah, good Scripture 
names inherited from their Puritan ancestors. 

" My father ! Ebenezer Webster ! — born at Kingston, 
in the lower part of the State, in 1739 — the hand- 
somest man I ever saw, except my brother Ezekiel, 
who appeared to me, and so does he now seem to me, 
the very finest human form that ever I laid eyes on. 
I saw him in his coffin — a white forehead — a tinued 



46 



cheek — a complexion as clear as heavenly light I But 
where am I straying? The grave has closed upon 
him, as it has on all mv brothers and sisters. We 
shall soon Ije all together. But this is melancholy, 
and I leave it. Dear — dear Idndred hlood, Jtou: Hove 
you all r 

There is another affecting allusion to these graves, 
in that inimitable letter written to his farmer at Frank- 
lin, from Washington, in March last, and beginning 
thus : — " J(3iix Taylor — Go ahead. The heart of the 
winter is broken, and before the first day of April, all 
your land may be ploughed." Then in the midst of 
minute agricidtural directions, comes in this beautiful 
and characteristic sentence : — " Take care to keep ini/ 
mothers (jarden in good order, even if it cost you the 
wages of a man to take care of it." The letter closes 
thus : — " John Taylor, thank God, morning and even- 
ing, that you w^ere born in such a countr}-. John 
Taylor, never write me another word upon politics. 
Give my kindest remembrances to your wife and chil- 
dren ; and when you look from your eastern windows 
upon tlio graves of uiy family, remember that he who 
is the author of this letter must soon follow them to 
another world." 

It is in fauuliar epistles like these we see the heart 
oi' the great statesman laid open : and the more fully 
it is unveiled, the more opulent will it be ibuud in 
those allections and syuipathies, whit-h are rarely com- 
bined with the highest al)ilities. and as rarely outlast 
the cares and collisions of a long political career. 



47 

His devotion to agriculture has been liinted at : and 



r ' 



rural occupations always have a tendency to keep up 
a healthful tone of feeling. But his connnunings were 
not all with nature. He was like Cowley : — 

".Ah, yet, ore I descend to the grave, 
May I a small house and large garden have ! 
And a few friends and many books, both true, 

Both wise, and both delightful too !" 

The 'large garden,' the 'friends/ (though not a 'few') 
and the 'many books/ he had; and well did he use 
them. The love of books was an early passion with 
him. He could recite the whole Essay on Man ver- 
hatim before he was fourteen years old. And while 
still a boy, he committed to memory, not as a task, 
but as a pleasure, Watts's Psalms and Hymns. Nor 
was he less fond of the sublime poetry of the 13ible. 
These habits continued with him through life. A 
very competent authority has remarked, that "the 
celebrity of Lord Mansfield and Lord Stowell, as judges, 
is in no small degree owing to their having continued 
to refresh and to embellish their professional labours 
by perusing the immortal productions of poets, histo- 
rians, and moralists." Mr. Webster pursued the same 
course and with the same results. The ancient and 
modern Classics were, with the Bible, his daily com- 
panions. His capacious mind was a store-house of 
useful and elegant learning, gathered from every 
source — from books, from careful obser^-ation of men 
and things, from a ripe experience and much reflec- 



48 

tion. This various and ample knowledge was so di- 
gested and arranged as to be always at his command. 
He could employ it with equal facility to instruct and 
amuse the social circle, to compose, if occasion required 
it, a Historical Discourse, which should astonish the 
country at the minuteness and accuracy of his classi- 
cal lore, or to enrich his speeches with those graceful 
allusions and illustrations which are to an elaborate 
argument what the drapery is to the portrait, and the 
feather to the shaft. Let the young men of his profes- 
sion profit by this example. No mind can be fed exclu- 
sively on law, wdthout suffering. Nature will be certain 
to resent the huge indignity. Ho who would rise above 
the penury of the mere pleader, must have at least a 
sprinkling of books in his library, which are not bound 
in the canonical hue — mme relief to the dismal mono- 
tony. Lord Eldon, it is true, might l3e cited, as an 
adverse precedent : for he once astonished the Bar, it 
is said, by telling them that, during the long vacation, 
he had read " Paradise Lost.'" But it should be added 
that nature took her revenge even upon a Lord Chan- 
cellor ; since, according to Lord Campbell, towards the 
close of life, he could scarcely speak or write gram- 
matically. Whatever a man's profession, the only 
way in which he can elude the tendency to become a 
narrow, tcehnieal, stereotype character, is to go forth 
occasionally into regions which lie beyond his daily 
walks; to talk with peo})lo of other creeds and other 
callintrs ; to make excursions into the domain of science, 
and to appropriate some portion of his time, even if it be 



49 



but its brief remnants and parentheses, to literary pur- 
suits. The error of those who neglect this, is only less 
pernicious than that which they fall into, who degrade 
their profession to a secondary place, and bestow their 
chief c?iYe upon other studies. We honour literature in 
a Lawyer, a Pli}' sician, or a Divine ; but we cease to 
honour it when it becomes paramount. The noblest 
forensic arguments 

" May flow from lips wet with Castalian dews :" 

but Benches and Juries would be very impatient of an 
advocate whose speeches should sparkle with Castalian 
dews — and with nothing else. And, certainly, any 
congregation would be warranted in dismissing a pastor 
who should habitually substitute literary essays for 
the Gospel of Christ. — But it is time to return from 
this digression. 

Undoubtedly Mr. Webster had his failings; and 
with some minds of a peculiar cast, these may even 
make it a matter of doubtful expediency to comment 
upon his character from the pulpit. It were certainly 
delightful could we dwell on his life and services with- 
out making any deduction for personal defects. What- 
ever those defects were, they will find no vindication 
here. But neither shall they be exaggerated here. 
Exaggerated they doubtless have been, for such is the 
evil custom of the country. We have got it by inhe- 
ritance. In one of his shrewd and caustic letters from 
England, ^'oltaire observes, " So violent did I find par- 



50 

ties in London, that I was assnred by several, that the 
Duke of Marlborough was a coward, and Mr. Pope a 
fool." If we may trust the partisan press of the Union, 
we seldom have a citizen nominated for any of the 
chief trusts of the government, who is not a fool, a 
coward, or a drunkard. An eminent cinlian whose 
virtues adorn every domestic and social relation, re- 
marked in his place in the Senate a few months since, 
that when his name was before the country as a can- 
didate for the Presidency, he was charged with every 
crime except one mentioned in the decalogue. It is 
an indelible stigma upon the national character, that 
the freedom of the press should be permitted to de- 
generate into this intoleraljle licentiousness. How 
much of injustice the illustrious man whom Providence 
has taken from us, may have suffered in this way, I 
know not : that he encountered his full share of de- 
traction, Avill be conceded by all who are willing to 
judge others as they would be judged themselves. For 
myself, I have no sympathy with those persons who 
when the sun is mentioned, can think only of his 
spots. I can take no pleasure in dwelling on the al- 
leged frailties of a man like Daniel Webster. I choose 
rather to leave them where all our errors and delin- 
((ueneies mu.^t be left, and to dwell on those aspects of 
liis character and life which are stamped witli true ex- 
cellence and genuine sublimity, and which entitle him 
to the lasting gratitude of the American people. 

It is a satisfaction to me to know that the convic- 
tions I entertain on this point, are shared by those gen- 



51 

tlemen whose olTicial pastoral relations to him give a 
peculiar value to their opinions. And I feel with them 
that the friends of religion may cherish a just pride in 
appealing to the numerous testimonies he has left to 
the truth and efficacy of the Christian system.'-' 

Any attempt, indeed, to estimate Mr. Webster's cha- 
racter and labours, which should omit or disparage this 
element, Avould be radically defective. He himself 
said with great truth and beauty, in announcing to 
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts the death of Jere- 
miah Masonf — " Religion is a necessary and indispen- 
sable element in any great human character. There 
is no living without it. Religion is the tie that con- 
nects man w^ith his Creator, and holds him to his 
throne. If that tie be sundered, all brolvcn, he floats 

* I shall violate no confidence by publishing the following para- 
graph from a letter I have received from my old school-fellow and 
valued friend, the Rev. Dr. Butler, of ^Yashington : — ''I do believe 
that Mr. Webster was a truly converted and religious man. He 
was for more than five ^-ears a communicant in my Church, and al- 
ways treated me, as his Pastor, with great affection, attention, and 
respect. His conduct in church was very reverent. His interest in 
solemn and direct preaching was very evident ; his emotions often 
manifest; his dislike of flummery and pretension in the pulpit in- 
tense; his love of clear, strong, personal, aftectionatc presentation of 
the most distinguishing and important truths of the Gospel, propor- 
tionably warm. His conversation with me was more frequently than 
that of most I'eligious men, on religious subjects. He never left the 
Church on Communion Sundays without coming to the communion; 
and his participation of tliat sacrament was marked with a peculiar 
concentration and solemnity of feeling." 
t November 14, 1848. 



52 



away, a wortliless atom in the universe ; its proper at- 
tractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole 
future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death. A 
man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the 
ScrijDtures describe in such terse but terrific language, 
as living ' without God in the world/ Such a man 
is out of his proper ])eing, out of the circle of all his 
duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and away, 
far, far away from the purposes of his creation." 

These were no words of idle compliment. They 
were convictions inwrought in the verv framework of 
his being. The Bible was one of the books on which 
his childhood had been nurtured, lie continued a 
diligent student of it through life. He said to a friend 
a few years since, " I have read through the entire 
Bible many times. I now make a practice to go 
through it once a vear. It is the book of all others 
for Lawyers as well as for Divines ; and I pity the 
man that cannot find in it a rich supply of thought 
and of rules for his conduct: it fits man for life — it 
prepares him for death." This reminds one of Fisher 
Ames, who once said, perliaps with too little qualifica- 
tion : " I will hazard the assertion that no man ever 
did, or ever will, become truly eloquent without being 
a constant reader of the Bible, and an admiix'r of the 
purity and sublimity of its language." It was not, 
however, with either of these eminent men a mere 
professional exercise. It was one of the most potent 
awncics in uiouldinn; tliem to that robust intellectual 
;uul moral structure b\' which thev were distinguished. 



53 

A profound veneration for the Deity, blended with a 
cordial and generous recognition of Christianity, per- 
vades Mr. Webster's writings beyond those of almost 
any contemporaneous statesman. It is not a meagre 
and reluctant acknowledgment of the scheme of natu- 
ral religion. He well knew that this was no sufficient 
remedy for the evils of the fall, lie regarded man as 
a lost sinner, in need of a Saviour ; and no system of 
faith could satisfy him, that did not provide a Saviour. 
It is the Gospel of Christ which so often reveals itself 
in his speeches and correspondence, as the theme of 
emphatic allusion or of eloquent eulogy. It is evan- 
gelical Christianity, as suppljdng at once the only solid 
foundation for man to rest his immortal hopes upon, 
and the only sure guarantee of national freedom and 
happiness. 

This point is of too much importance to be dismissed 
without exhibiting Mr. AVebster's method of dealing 
with revealed religion. The following paragraphs are 
taken (with some abridgment) from one of his legal 
arguments; and the tone of them, as indeed the tone of 
the whole speech, is such as must carry conviction to 
the mind, that it is no less the man than the advocate 
who is speaking : 

" The ground taken is, that religion is not necessary 
to morality ; that benevolence may be insured bv habit, 
and that all the virtues may flourish and be safely left 
to the chance of flourishing, without touching the wa- 
ters of the living spring of religious responsibility. 
AVith him who thinks thus, what can be the value of 



54 

the Christian revelation ? So the Christian world, has 
not thought, for with that Christian world, throughout 
its broadest extent, it has been and is held as a funda- 
mental truth, that religion is the only solid basis of 
morals, and that moral instruction, not resting on this 
basis, is only a building upon sand/' '• When little 
children were brought into the presence of the Son of 
God, his disciples proposed, to send, them away ; but he 
said, ' Suffer little children to come unto me' — unto 
me ; he did not send them first for lessons in morals 
to the schools of the Pharisees or to the unbelieving 
Sadducees, nor to read the precepts and. lessons liJiy- 
lacteried on the garments of the Jewish priesthood ; he 
said, nothing of different creeds or clashing doctrines ; 
but he oj^ened. at once to the youthful mind the ever- 
lasting fountain of living waters, the only source of 
immortal truths ; ' Suffer little children to come unio 
me.' And. that injunction is of perpetual o])ligation. 
It addresses itself to-day with the same earnestness 
and the same authority which attended its first utter- 
ance to the Christian world. It is of force everywhere 
and at all tunes. It extends to the ends of the earth, 
it will reach to the end of time, always and every- 
where sounding in the ears of men with an emphasis 
Avhich no repetition can weaken, and with an autho- 
rity which nothing can supersede — ' /Suffer little cliil- 
dren to come unto ME.' 

"And not only ni}' heart and my judgment, my be- 
lief and my conscience, instruct me that this great pre- 
cept should l)e obeyed, but the idea is so sacred, the 



55 

solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon me, 
it is so utterly at variance with this sj'stem of philoso- 
phical moral'Ujj which we have heard ad\'ocated, that 
I stand and speak here in fear of being intiuenced by 
my feelings to exceed the proper line of my profes- 
sional duty."''' 

In keeping ^\\i\\ this fine passage, is that impressive 
announcement to the Court, of Mr. Mason's death, al- 
ready cited, in the coarse of which he quotes with ap- 
probation, an account of the religious exercises of the 
deceased jurist, such as is rarely heard in our halls of 
Justice. " He w^as fully aware that his end was near ; 
and in answer to the question, ' Can you now rest 
wdth firm faith upon the merits of your Divine Ee- 
deemer ?' He said, ' I trust I do : upon what else can 
I rest ?' — At another time, in reply to a similar ques- 
tion, he said, ' Of course, I have no other ground of 
hope.' " If I mistake not, there is something remarka- 
ble in this. It is not in the usual st^de of these an- 
nouncements. There is no censoriousness in saying 
that very few of the men who stand in the front rank 
of the Profession, would have ventured upon it. But 
Mr. Webster could do it without scruple or embarrass- 
ment. It w\as as natural for him to do it, as it would 
have been for most of his associates to confine them- 
selves to the more cautious formularies, which custom 
has prescribed as the official costume of Christianity, 
when she enters the Forum or the Senate. It was 
nothing for lum to speak of a " Redeemer," and of 

* Argument in the Girard Will Case. 



-.0 



tG. 



56 

salvation through his blood. It was nothing for liim 
to stand up in the presence of the Massachusetts Bar. 
and narrate to them how one, at whose feet they 
would, any of them, have been willing to sit, and at 
whose feet many of them had sat, as learners, utterly 
renounced, when he came to die, all dependence upon 
the virtues which adorned his character, and trusted 
for pardon only to the merits of Christ. The religion 
which centres in the Cross, had not only formed the 
groundwork of his Puritan training, but was, as his 
brethren well knew, one of his favourite and familiar 
studies through life. Its sublime doctrines opened to 
him a field in which his majestic powers loved to ex- 
patiate. Its consolations met the moral necessities of 
his nature. It was congenial to the grandeur of his 
imagination, which it nerved for its loftiest tiights. It 
was in sympathy with the tenderness of his heart. A 
rigid, or even a tolerant, casuist might not find its foot- 
prints just where he required them. Some important 
indications of its presence, it must be conceded, were 
not there as they oucjld to have been. He had not 
escaped — what public man does escape ? — the moth 
and the rust with wliich a political life eats in upon 
religious principle and religious habits.'-' But it does 
not admit of argument as to where his convictions 

* There arc exceptions. A very signal one in our own annals 
was once characterized by Mr. Wdotrr liinisolf, in terms so beauti- 
ful that T cannot forbear copying the sentence : — *' When the spot- 
less ermine of the judicial robe fell on Jon.N Jav. it touched nothing 
not as spotless as itself." 



57 



were, where his desires were, where his endeavours 
were. Looking at him as a whole, it was apparent 
that he must have grown up in a healthful moral at- 
mosphere — an atmosphere as fresh and bracing for his 
mental and moral nature, as the clear air and Alpine 
scenery of New Hampshire had been for his physical 
man. Daniel Webster never could have iDcen what 
he was, nor anything approximating to Avliat he was — 
still less could he have acquired his acknowledged as- 
cendency over the minds of his countrymen — had he 
been an infidel or even an indifferentist in religion. 
Those Avho would discover the secret of his strength — 
at least one secret of his strength — will find it in his 
systematic, thorough, and affectionate atudij of the 
Scriptures. How it produced its effects upon his in- 
tellectual powers, his temper and disposition, his juris- 
prudence, his statesmanship, and the whole tone and 
cast of his public labours, not to speak of his faultless 
style, it might not, perhaps, be difficult to show if the 
time would permit. But it must suffice to observe, 
on one single point, that there is an obvious logical 
connexion between that habit of mind which fitted 
him to grapple with the most complex questions, and 
to take the most comprehensive views of every subject, 
and those profound meditations on the moral govern- 
ment of Jehovah, and the relations and destiny of the 
soul, with which he was so often occupied. Those 
who value our Constitution and who desire the perpe- 
tuity of the Union, have great reason to bless God 
that Daniel Webster loved and studied the Bible. And 
it is not the least of the dories which cluster around 



58 

his character, that whether before the Bar of Massa- 
chusetts, or the Supreme Court of the United States, 
whether in the august presence of the Senate, or in the 
midst of an excited popuhir assemblage, he was never 
ashamed to avow his behef in the Gospel of Christ. 

Here is one of the great lessons to be derived from 
his life — the greatest, indeed, of all. He is but a 
careless observer of society, who has not detected the 
encroachments of infidelity among the educated young 
men of the country within the last few years. It 
comes in a captivating form. The ribaldry of Paine 
and Voltaire would excite disgust. The metaphysi- 
cal Pyrrhonism of Hume Avould be too abstruse. Three 
other schemes are invented better adapted to the 
times. One is the theory of progressive development, 
which has been bom and baptized within the Church. 
The second is a subtle and specious rationalism, which 
has been transplanted from Germany. And the third 
is a gorgeous Pantheism from the same hot-bed of 
error. These systems all breathe a complaisant lan- 
guage towards Christianity, while each is in its own 
way sapping its foundations. Without undertaking 
to apportion to each its specific agency in producing 
the result, the fact is indisputable, that many of the 
rising authors and professional men of the country 
are tinctured with a supercilious scepticism. Inilated 
])y a spurious philosophy — '' philosoi)hy falsely so 
called" — ilivy have come to regard Christianity as a 
sort of obsolete system, which has served its purpose, 
and must now be laid upon the shelf It may still 
enlist the sullVages of the common people, but educated 



. 59 

men demand a system less humiliating in its personal 
requisitions, and more in keeping Avitli the general 
progress of the world ! 

Now is it not a pleasant thing to be able to send 
these Solons to a man like Daniel Webster ? Scio- 
lists as they often are in literature, and always in 
sacred learning, let them sit down to the perusal of 
his works, and brand with puerility or fanaticism 
those noble passages scattered throughout every vo- 
lume, in which he bows before the majesty of a per- 
sonal and holy God, or extols the evangelical faith as 
the only hope of a lost world. They dure not do 
this, even though they refuse to follow in his steps. 
Pride or prejudice may impair the just influence of 
his example upon them, but it will not be lost upon 
others who have not yet plunged into the abyss of 
Atheism. Nor does Webster stand alone. It is aus- 
picious for the country, and honourable to their 
memories, that our three leading statesmen who have 
lately gone down to the tomb, were all arrayed on 
the side of Christianity. A single testimony from 
one of them, whose oratory rang for forty years through 
the country like the notes of a silver trumpet, is all 
it may be requisite to cite. " Man's inability," said 
Mr. CLay,=-= shortly before his death, " to secure by his 
own merits the approbation of God, I feel to be true. 
I trust in the atonement of the Saviour of men, as 
the ground of my acceptance, and my hope of salva- 
tion. My faith is feeble, but I hope in his mercy and 

* To Mr. Yenabk^ 



60 

trust in his promises." There is a power in utterances 
like these which must be felt. Christianity, it is true, 
stands in no need of human props. Its buttresses are 
strong enough to defy — as for eighteen hundred years 
they have defied — the assaults of malice and envy, of 
unsanctified learning and audacious ignorance, of 
kingcraft and priestcraft, and wliatever other weapons 
earth or hell may forge against her. But it may help 
to arm the ingenuous youth of our country against 
the seductions of unbelief, to remember that such 
men as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster — not to cite 
a cloud of other witnesses from the brightest pages in 
our national annals, — gave their deliberate testimony 
through life to the Divine authority of the Christian 
religion, and at death connnitted their souls to Jesus 
Christ as their Redeemer. 

Various conflicting statements have been published 
respecting the closing scenes of Mr. Webster's life. 
From some of these it might be supposed that his 
mind was occupied with politics almost to the end. I 
am happy to have it in my power to correct these 
impressions. What I am aljout to state rests on the 
very best authority. 

Mr. Webster, then, for at least two weeks before 
his death, might almost be said to have made no 
allusion to politics wliatever. lie neither conversed 
on the subject, nor gave the slightest indication that 
his thoughts were directed to it. On the contrary, 
his whole mind and his whole time were given " to 
his affections and his duties," — to his domestic and 
social sympathies, and his preparation for death. 



61 

Beyond the circle of liis family and friends, his 
thoughts were not of earth, but of heaven. Politics 
and every other temporal interest were banished, 
and his whole concern w^as with the tilings of eter- 
nity. During this period he referred to a purpose he 
had long entertained, of preparing a work on the 
Evidences of Christianity ; and after expressing the 
conviction that he ought to leave behind him some 
testimony of this kind, he set about writing a state- 
ment of Ms faitli in ihe Christian, religion, icitli the 
grounds and reasons of the same. This paper, when 
finished, was read over with great care, and various 
alterations and interlineations made by him — a confi- 
dential friend acting as his amanuensis. He then 
placed it in the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown for 
convenient reference, and two or three days before 
his death, he drew it forth, and handed it to his 
friend, saying, " Here is this paper ; I believe it is 
now as perfect as I can make it." This interesting 
and important document, in which the argument for 
Christianity is said to be presented Avith singular 
force, will in due time be j)ublished. Such were the 
occupations which engrossed Mr. Webster's mind in 
the prospect of death. 

" A setting sun 



Should leave a track of glory in the skies." 

There was a bright and softened ray shooting up- 
ward from that shrouded chamber at Marshfield, 
where our great statesman lay expiring. It was his 
humble, steadfast confession of Jesus Christ. 



62 

The following particulars given by Dr. Jeffries, 
in a letter to the Rev. Dr. Butler, cannot fail to excite 
the deepest interest. 

"On leaving Mr. "Webster for the night, at Hi o'clock, on Satur- 
day, October 16th, 1852, I asked him if I should repeat to him a 
hymn at parting, to which he gave a ready assent, when I repeated 
the hymn which begins : 

" ' There is a fountain filled with blood, 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins.' 

" He gave very serious attention to the recital, and at the close 
said, 'Amen, amen — even so come, Lord Jesus.' This was uttered 
with great solemnity, lie afterwards asked me if I remembered 
the verse in one of Watts's hymns on the thought of dying at the 
foot of the Cross, and repeated these lines with remarkable energy 
and feeling : 

" ' Should worlds conspire to drive me hence, 
Moveless and firm this heart should lie, 
Resolved (for that's my last defence), 
If I must perish — here to die.' 

" He repeated the text, ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved,' and then what he had given to be inscribed 
upon his tombstone, which was as follows : 

" 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.' 

" ' Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of 
the universe, in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, 
has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me: but my heart 
has always assured and reassured me, tliat the Gospel of Jesus Christ must 
be a divine reality.' 

" ' The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production. 

This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience. 

" ' The whole history of man proves it.' 

"'D.\XIEL 'Websteu.' " 

On tlio evening before his death, ho j)rayed in his 
usual voice, strong, full, and clear, and ended thus : 



63 

" Heavenly Father, forgive my sins, and receive me 
to thyself through Jesus Christ." He also exclaimed, 
"I shall be to-night in life, and joy, and blessedness." 
Later in the night a faintness occurred, which led him 
to think that death was at hand. While in this con- 
dition, some expressions fell from him, indicating the 
hope that his mind would remain to him completely 
to the last. He spoke of the dilliculty of the process of 
dying, when Dr. Jeffries repeated the verse, " Though 
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I 
Avill fear no evil, for Thou art with me : thy rod and 
thy staff, they comfort me." He said immediately, 
"The flict— the fact. That is what I want. Tluj 
rod — till/ rod: tltij staff- — thj staff':' His last words 
were, " I still live !" 

These gleams of light which irradiated the 
chamber of death, now shed their lustre upon his 
secluded tomb. This tomb will have an interest for 
his countrymen and for intelligent strangers, inferior 
to that of no man of his generation. 

" Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines, 
Shrines to no code or creed confined — 
The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 

But pilgrims need not journey to Marshfield. His 
memorials are all over the land. Our farms and our 
factories — our ships and our railways — our school- 
houses and our churches — our courts and our legisla- 
tures — our domestic harmony and our honourable 
position among the nations — our matchless Constitu- 



64 

tion, stronger than ever against the paroxysms of 
misguided patriotism or malevolent faction, and our 
glorious Union, firmer than ever in the affections of 
the people — these are his memorials. Ilis character 
and achievements have become a part of our national 
renown. And until the country lacks a historian, 
Daniel Webster cannot want a biographer. To his 
country, indeed, (if we may embalm his name in one 
of his own beautiful tributes to departed greatness — 
the prophetic paraphrase of his dying words) " he yet 
lives, and lives for ever. Pie lives in all that perpe- 
tuates the remembrance of men on earth ; in the 
recorded proofs of his own great actions, in the off- 
spring of his intellect, in the deep-engraved lines of 
public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of 
mankind. He lives in his example; and he lives 
emphatically, and will live in the intiuence which his 
life and efforts, his principles and opinions, now ex- 
ercise, and will continue to exercise, on the aflairs of 
men, not onlv in their own countrv, but throuahout the 
civilized world. A superior and commanding human 
intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes 
so rare a gift, is not a temporary llame. burning 
brightly for awhile, and then giving place to returning 
darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as 
well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the 
common mass of human mind; so that when it glim- 
mers in its own decay, and linally goes out in death. 
no night follows, l)ut it leaves the world all light, all 
on fire, from the potent contact of its own spirit. 

39 W 









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